Wednesday, April 3, 2013

Boys' Night Out

Want to know the quickest and most sure-fire way to get drunk in New York City? I’ll tell you exactly how. You meet three of your friends there for dinner, one of whom is celebrating turning another year older. Then, when you walk into a certain Mexican restaurant on Ninth Avenue in Hell’s Kitchen, you call out to the bartender standing just inside, “Hey, how are your margaritas? We have a birthday boy here.”

Because what will happen is that the bartender will decide you’ve thrown down the gauntlet. When you and your buddies order four margaritas to go with dinner, he will mix up four goldfish-bowl sized drinks that are actually nothing more than a salt-crusted glass filled with straight, lethal tequila, in the general vicinity of which the bartender has vaguely waved a lime that may or may not have been sliced at the time. And then, after dinner, both the bartender and the restaurant’s owner will come over to your table brandishing a bottle of tequila apiece, which they’ll pour directly into the birthday boy’s mouth until he’s choking and burbling like a fountain of Jose Cuervo.

No, I was not the birthday boy.

However, I was the most inebriated I’ve ever been that night, which admittedly isn’t saying much. At the meal’s conclusion, when I excused myself from the table to pee, I walked for several steps under the confused belief that one of my legs was suddenly shorter than the other. Then I figured out that it would help if I walked on the sole of my right foot, rather than its side.

And how do you follow up that kind of start to a celebration? Why, by walking a couple of blocks south to another gay bar, a saloon on the avenue’s east side. For the birthday boy it was a chance to continue the festivities. For me, it was a peaceful few minutes to chug down a bottle or two of water and hope that the world might stop spinning around me.

As I moaned slightly to myself and clutched the bar from my stool, my friends were having a friendly argument about power pop bands of the nineteen-seventies over by the jukebox. Then a fellow sat down next to me, ordered a drink, and pulled out his phone. He proceeded to doodle around on it with his fingertips. I looked him over for a moment. He was in his early thirties. Handsome. Jet-black hair that had been groomed into a swoop over his forehead. Dark eyebrows that formed natural commas at the brow.

I’d gone back to quietly praying that the floor would stop moving in ocean waves when suddenly the birthday boy loomed between me and the guy who’d just sat down. “HI!” he said, in the loud and confident way shared by both the inebriated and the developmentally challenged. “What’s YOUR name?”

“Steven,” stammered the guy, putting down his phone.

“HI STEVEN!” said the birthday boy. “You’re CUTE. Do you want to see MY ASS?”

For a moment I thought he was going to drop trou, right there in the saloon. But no, he thrust his iPhone into Steven’s face. On it was a picture of himself spread-eagle on a bed, naked ass up, knees digging into the mattress. “Oh, good god,” I said. Then I put my hand on the birthday boy’s wrist. “Put your ass away.”

“He SAID he wanted to see it!” said the birthday boy, all belligerence.

“Actually, he didn’t,” I said. Very persuasively, I got him to put away the phone. “Go back to the jukebox,” I suggested.

I shooed him along. Steven and I looked at each other for a moment, the broke out into genuine laughter. I’ll tell you—and those of you with considerate wingmen, take note—there’s no better ice breaker than if your buddy shows his ass photos to a perfect stranger. “It’s his birthday,” I told him. “He’s pretty wasted.”

“Ya think?” said Steven.

We talked casually for a little bit. He was an out-of-towner who was doing business in Hoboken for a couple of days, and he’d thought to take the train into the city to check out the bar scene. I told him about the bars I’d visited in the Hell’s Kitchen area. Nothing deep. I wished him a good time.

We were about to sink back into our anonymity once again when the birthday boy loomed between us. He put a hand on each of our backs. “Steven, you’re CUTE,” he boomed. People around us turned at the sound of his over-loud voice. “Did my buddy show you his COCK PICTURES?”

I gave the birthday boy a look that was intended to say, What the fuckety fuck? He ignored me and thundered, “He has ALL HIS COCK PICTURES on his PHONE. Did he show you HIS COCK PICTURES?”

Steven sat up straight in his chair. “No, he did not,” he said, humoring my drunk buddy.

“I don’t have all my cock pictures on my phone,” I told him.

His eyebrows shot up. “But you have some of them?”

That I couldn’t deny.

“You should get him to SHOW YOU HIS COCK PICTURES,” said the birthday boy with the general command usually given to the Voice of God in Technicolor extravaganzas.

I sighed. I pulled my wallet out of my jacket. I keep my phone in a leather portfolio that doubles as a wallet. I opened the cover, pulled up my photos, and chose one of the shots. “Fine,” I said, acting like I didn’t flash my dick at strangers on a regular basis.

Steven jumped in his seat as if he’d been electrified. “Holy shit,” he said, genuinely shocked. Then he grabbed my phone out of my hands and cupped it in his own so he could study it.

“That’s my wallet,” I stammered.

“I TOLD YOU!” said the birthday boy.

“My credit cards. . . .” I said weakly.

“Is that really you?” Steven wanted to know.

I nodded.

“Holy shit,” Steven repeated. He looked at me, then looked at the photo, then looked at me again.

“My cash. . . .”

The birthday boy took my wallet from Steven’s hands. “That’s not even the one I like BEST,” he said, flipping backwards and forwards through the album. “HERE WE GO.”

He put the wallet back into Steven’s hands. I could see he’d found one of my fuck shots, in which I’m pointing the length of my cock, angry, red, and already covered in lube, at a boy’s ass. “Holy shit,” Steven said for a third time. Then a fourth. “Ho . . . ly . . . shit!” He began flipping through the album himself, looking at several of my self pics, a shot of me sucking dick, then lingering on a couple of shots I’d taken for friends: me grinning at the camera while I had my hand wrapped around my meat. I could tell they’d been taken very late at night, because the light was dim and I was wearing my glasses instead of my contact lenses. “Yeah, that’s you all right!” he said.

“HEY,” said the birthday boy to one of the other friends who’d been at dinner with us. “Have you seen his COCK PICTURES BEFORE?”

“No, I certainly have not!” said my other buddy. I shrugged and gave up as Steven handed over the phone to him. My other buddy looked at the late night shot, looked at me, looked at the late night shot, then raised his eyebrows. “Wow. Just wow,” he said.

“Wow what?” I asked. I can’t honestly say I wasn’t enjoying the attention. I just liked pretending annoyance.

why do you always refer to the bartender as stupid, dumb, bag of rocks, etc. on here. If you like the guy why make fun of him behind his back. That's what teenage girls do -not grown men. Tell him to his face how you feel. When he finds out I can assure you he won't care how big your tips are, in fact he will probably throw your ass out the joint.

....says the anonymous commenter, apparently without seeing the irony.

This is my blog. I say what I want on my blog. I never have claimed I am 100% nice, on my blog. If you don't like my blog, take your sexist, un-self-aware comments to some other blog that won't ever, ever offend you. I hear those Mormon Mommy blogs will treat you like the special snowflake you are.

Perfect story! Told and written very well. Loved it. P.S. -Anonymous comments are bullshit... internet trolls that like drama. Don't waste your time on them. That's what the delete key is for. Awesome story. Thanks for sharing. In addition to being a stud, you're quite talented.- Uptonking from Wonderland Burlesque

The problem with the rude anonymous comments—they're always anonymous—is that I'm damned if I address them, and damned if I don't. If I respond to them, I have a group of readers who will urge me not to sink to the poster's level. If I don't and I delete the comment instead, the anonymous commenter often post follow-ups that read "I guess you didn't post my comment because you CAN'T FACE THE TRUTH" or some such nonsense.

So I pick and choose which inane comments get my attention. These days, readers only see a very small fraction of them. In this case I chose to reply because I found mind-boggling the irony of someone hiding behind an anonymous comment to tell me that real men say everything face to face and in the open. Seriously. That takes an astonishing lack of self-awareness to post.

I also chose to respond to that particular dumb-ass comment (not even made on the right entry, which is choice) because the complaint touches on something about which I've warned readers before: I do not have any obligation to adhere to what readers' expectations of 'nice' might be. I have never claimed to be 'nice,' or a paragon of virtuous behavior. I am not obliged to let my readers tell me what I can and cannot think, say, or feel, any more than I am obliged to let them or anyone tell me where I can and cannot stick my dick.

And I certainly am not obligated to remain silent and look chastened when some coward whose daddy or middle school coach told him he wasn't 'man enough' decides it's his job to instruct others on how to be a real man . . . through anonymous comments. Yeah. That's really manly.

Hilarious. I've read your blog off and on for a while but this one got me to actually comment. Your cages story had a lovely southern gothic vibe to it, and this one stands out as perfectly timed comedy. Very glad you decided to come back to posting. You do visual art too so you will get what I mean here, but you may be happier if you can focus on process over product. You can't control what the viewer does or does not see when they look at your work. Some bring a lot to it, some don't have much to bring at all. Write to your own ends. If people enjoy it then that's a nice bonus, if they don't then it's nothing to do with you - it's just what they're bringing which is often just a big bucket of neediness. /wise meta voice :D Thanks for the great blog.

About the Blogger

Some basic facts: I'm married. I'm fifty. I'm a good-looking, professional, well-adjusted dad who enjoys anonymous encounters, public sex, and pursuing my favorite hobby of fucking.
Anything beyond those statements that you don't find in the pages of this blog is an assumption. You know what they say about assumptions.

More About the Breeder

Sex is all about interaction to me. It's both mental and physical. So I enjoy interacting with readers and welcome your comments, questions, and responses. Always feel free to email me. I'm friendly. Honest! I enjoy chatting through yahoo messenger as well.

Unless I start doing something drastically different, all the photos in this blog are taken by me, and are of me. Or are of me inside someone. Something like that.

And yes, the events of this journal are factual.

Wishlists

Because several readers have requested it, I have set up a wishlist at Amazon for books, DVDs, gift cards, and underwear.

I write my journal because I enjoy sharing my sex life, past and present, not because I expect gifts. I've had several people inquire about wishlists, however, and if anyone's feeling generous, I won't thwart them. (I'm a working artist. I take what freebies I can get!)

If there were an anonymous pizza wishlist website, I'd be all on top of that, believe you me.